Secretive swearing-in installs Bush man on civil rights panel

Jeff Zeleny, Washington BureauCHICAGO TRIBUNE

The White House summoned a local judge Thursday night to swear in President Bush's appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, seeking to avoid a public showdown with the panel's chairwoman, who had vowed to block the candidate.

"I have a commission from the president. I consider myself a member of the Civil Rights Commission," Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland lawyer, said after the ceremony. "I expect to show up for work and not disappoint the president."

Panel head objects

A District of Columbia judge swore in Kirsanow, ending a long day of controversy between the White House and Mary Frances Berry, the chairwoman of the commission. She pledged not to recognize Kirsanow at the panel's meeting Friday, saying it would take federal marshals to persuade her.

The swearing-in ceremony took place late Thursday in the White House. Top Bush lawyer Alberto Gonzales attended the event, but it was not announced by the administration and surprised several members of the commission.

Berry, who led the civil rights panel in an investigation of voting irregularities in Florida during the presidential election, accused the Bush administration of trying to take control of the commission.

"This is obviously a power play designed to muzzle the commission," Berry said before Kirsanow was sworn in. "This is not about us and the Bush administration. It's about the independence of the commission."

Kirsanow, a member of the conservative Center for New Black Leadership, was appointed to replace commissioner Victoria Wilson, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

But Berry said Wilson's term doesn't actually expire for four years, and she told the White House she would not swear in Kirsanow. The Bush administration said Berry had her facts wrong and accused her of being intentionally divisive.

"Coming from the Civil Rights Commission, that is exactly the wrong approach a nation that needs racial healing needs to hear," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "This is inflammatory rhetoric for a commission whose mission has to be to bring people together."

Mission: Investigate voting

The Civil Rights Commission was formed in 1957 to investigate voting rights irregularities and fight discrimination. In the Berry-led panel's most recent visible undertaking, the commission earlier this year conducted hearings into the Florida presidential election.

It subpoenaed Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, to testify, and the contentious hearing in Tallahassee put many of the commissioners at odds with the White House.

Conservatives criticized the civil rights group, saying its liberal tilt during the Clinton administration reduced its effectiveness. The new Bush appointee would effectively take away a good deal of Berry's power by leveling out the partisanship and creating a commission that is divided equally.

"The level of credibility is very, very low," said Republican commissioner Abigail Thernstrom. "If it becomes a truly bipartisan body that is forced to work together, maybe the commission can dig itself out of the hole that it's now in."

A shakeup on the commission could threaten the chairmanship for Berry, who largely decides what issues the group tackles and delivers opinions on. The panel has no power to prosecute, but it can report findings to Congress and the Justice Department.

Court fight expected

Kirsanow's appointment is likely to end up in federal court, where a judge will be asked to help frame the makeup of the group.

The controversy centers on Wilson, a political independent who often sides with Berry. She was appointed in January 2000 after the death of Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., whose term would have expired Nov. 29.

The Bush administration, which referred Thursday to Wilson as a "former commissioner," argues that her term concluded on the same date.

"Otherwise, if you could have people step down and then appoint new people to a new six-year term, you could game the Civil Rights Commission so a president could appoint six people of his own choosing to serve new six-year terms," Fleischer said. "That is not the way the Civil Rights Commission was set up."

But Berry and Wilson contend that federal law says every member serves a term of six years, regardless of the circumstances of their appointment. They say that when Clinton appointed Wilson, it was intended to be for six years.

"This dispute should be decided by the federal courts, not by the politics of Washington," Theodore Wells, an attorney for Berry, wrote Thursday in a letter to Gonzales, the White House lawyer.

The Bush administration said it also hoped the controversy could be resolved without creating a public spectacle at Friday's meeting.